Our next-door Neighbour
Should we re-join the EU?
When the Britain left the EU at the end of 2020, there were recriminations from both camps. Both Brexiteers and Remainers are unhappy. And government politicians continue to lie both about the deal and its consequences.
But there are important truths left unsaid. The UK was always a reluctant European. It was fine to work together in research and development. It was rewarding to collaborate in a widened economy involving close to half a billion people. The single market was promoted and enjoyed by the UK. Indeed almost all EU legislation had either been proposed or supported by the UK. The UK had even been granted a rebate so as not to have to pay subsidies to European farmers and neither did the UK have to share in a common currency. Financially, it had the best deal of any member.
So far, so good, but the EU is committed to evolution. The EU has undergone a transition from a common market to a community of common standards and policies, and intends to come even closer together. The Euro will not assume its status as a supra-national instrument of finance without a stronger central bank and further loss of sovereignty amongst member states. The ‘European Project’ will inevitably result in some sort of federal Europe. This will be much easier without trying to drag the UK kicking and screaming further along this road.
For the UK, these changes would have represented an uncomfortable position. The attendant treaties would have been difficult to confirm in a UK referendum.
Therefore, the prospect of re-joining the EU is not one of resuming where we left off. The EU will have moved on in the direction of ‘ever closer union’, and the UK will also become a different place.
Whatever the fate of the UK is in the world or the progress of the European project, reaching a future productive relationship with the EU is unlikely to involve the sort of membership the other members ascribe to.
The Liberal Democrats were the UK political party most committed to membership. Now its leader, Ed Davy, says they are not committed to re-join the EU. This has caused despair and consternation amongst Party members. He argues for a loser relationship; one which means being part of a single market with free movement of people. This looks like a ‘soft Brexit’ to me; the sort Theresa May argued for, the EU resisted and which resulted in the Conservative party replacing her as leader. But looking further into the prospects, now we are ‘out’, this seems like the only practical way to set a course where we might eventually find a safe harbour in association with the EU.
The Liberal Democrats have never been adept at PR nor able to phrase their policies in the best light. That’s pretty much an essential talent in politics and goes some way to explaining why the LibDems languish so far behind in the polls right now. But they are leading the debate about the UK’s place in Europe. As always, they lead the debate with a pragmatic, albeit poorly articulated argument.
For the next few years, the UK will muddle on – a national characteristic. Brexit will likely fade from the limelight and whatever happens within the EU, it will receive scant attention in the UK press, just as it always has.
The consequences of Brexit will be conflated with the pandemic. The battle for economic supremacy between America and China will place the UK economy and its politics in the shade. Dissecting the effects of Brexit and its continued development from other factors will not capture the nation’s attention. It remains to be seen if relationships with the EU will even feature in the UK 2024 election. Four years is a lifetime in politics.
Politics in the UK will revolve around economic performance, internal unity (will Scotland and Northern Ireland remain in the union), yet more populist arguments and intractable disparities between regions and sectors of the working population.
These are the issues that the Liberal Democrats and all other UK Parties will need to concentrate on if they aspire for effective representation in the next Parliament.
